Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai is expecting to sign a deal valued at more than $700 million to buy Brooklyn’s Barclays Center at the same time he acquires the 51 percent of the Brooklyn Nets that he does not already own, sources said.
The simultaneous deals for the team and its home arena are expected to be announced as soon as Friday, sources said. The price of the arena is not expected to be disclosed.
As The Post reported earlier this week, Tsai is paying a record $2.35 billion for the Nets. That figure includes the $1 billion he paid last year for 49 percent of the team — plus the $1.35 billion he will be forking over for the balance.
The total team and arena transaction will cost him more than $3 billion.
Unlike the team, which now boasts star players Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, the arena has not gone up much in value, if at all, sources said.
Still, Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov is expected to make a killing on the sale. He began buying both the team and arena in 2010 and completed his purchase in 2015 for a price that reportedly valued the team at $875 million and the arena at $825 million. Four years later, the team is valued at 2.7 times that.
One reason Tsai may be buying the arena is the NBA likes its owners to also control their arenas, sources said.
Tsai could make money in the arena by reselling naming rights, which currently belong to British bank Barclays.
A Barclays rep declined to comment.
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